Sunday, January 22, 2012

A Compelling Call

“First Words”

Mark 1:14-20

January 22, 2012

An
email changed my life.

Think
about that for a minute and we’ll come back to it.

Tomorrow
a good friend of mine starts a strict diet.He’ll be eating six small meals each day.Five of those meals will come from the
specific diet program, and one meal will be the one that he prepares.Each meal will be perfectly portioned
controlled with limited calories but lots of nutrients.He will be restricted from certain foods
while he’s on the diet, but that won’t last forever.It’s a tough diet, but my friend will be
tougher.He’s ready to do this, not just
to lose weight but to get healthy.You’ve probably all seen the news about Paula Deen’s Type 2 Diabetes
diagnosis.Well my friend doesn’t want to
deal with those kinds of health issues, so he’s starting this journey of weight
loss.

As I said it’s a tough
diet.I know that for a fact, because
I’ve done it.In the year before I
discerned my call to come to Shawnee, I lost 75 pounds on this meal program. My friend has watched this and asked me to
walk with him on his own journey, just like another good friend of mine walked
my journey with me.

How did I get started
on this weight loss path?An email.That’s the email that changed my life.

I was sitting on my bed
feeling miserable, depressed and desperate.I was skimming through my emails on my laptop when I saw a new one.It was from a friend and fellow parent
writing that she had lost a lot of weight on a specific program and was now
working as a health coach.If I was
interested or knew anyone else who might be in finding out more, let her know.

Usually I’m skeptical
about things like this.But this time
felt different.Before I fully thought about
what I was doing, I wrote back, “Tell me more.”

And she did tell me
more.Thank goodness.

Like I said, that email
literally changed my life.I see it now
as a call in some sense.It was a call
to health, and like other kinds of calls, it came out of the blue.I wasn’t expecting it.I didn’t go looking for it.It came to me and I knew that it was time to
do something.

It was time.

Essentially these are
the first words of Jesus in Mark’s gospel.It’s time.According to Mark, he
says it a little more eloquently.“The time
is fulfilled.”But I think the meaning
is the same.It is time.

John the Baptizer has
been arrested, literally in the Greek, delivered up.Jesus is now in Galilee and he is proclaiming
the message, “That the time is fulfilled.The kingdom of God is near.Repent and believe the good news.”Those are his first words.It’s
time.A new reality is upon us and that
is the reality of God’s kingdom, God’s domain.Change your minds, change your hearts from your old ways of thinking,
being and doing, and answer this call to believe in the good news.

And with those first
words he then turns to some fishermen he encounters while walking by the Sea of
Galilee.Simon and his brother Andrew
were casting their nets and Jesus calls to them.“Follow me and I will make you fish for
people.” Immediately, they drop their
nets and follow Jesus.

A little further along,
Jesus sees two more fishermen, James and his brother John, sons of Zebedee, in
the boat with their dad mending nets.Jesus calls them too, and their response is the same.Immediately, they leave their work and their
father and the hired men sitting in the boat, and follow Jesus.

First words.First call.First disciples.

There has been lots of
speculation as to why the disciples answered Jesus’ call so quickly,so immediately as Mark reiterates.One theory is that they knew of Jesus or even
knew Jesus before this time.Just
because Mark doesn’t write about preaching events in other places around the
Galilee neighborhood doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen.Word of Jesus could have been spreading.According to this theory Jesus was already
gaining notoriety and fame, so when he called the disciples, they’d heard about
him previously.To the outside observer
it might look like the disciples just dropped everything and followed a
stranger, but in reality they already knew Jesus or at least knew of him.

Or maybe they’d never
heard of Jesus before, but they didn’t like fishing.They were in it because it was the family
business and it was expected of them, but they didn’t like it.It was hot, tedious work that sometimes
yielded enormous catches while other times they couldn’t catch anything.It was literally a case of feast or
famine.So when this man came along and
offered them a chance to do something else, something different, they jumped at
it and followed him.

Perhaps it was a
combination of both.They knew Jesus and
they didn’t like fishing.Or maybe it
was neither.I’m not convinced that
knowing the reason they followed as they did is all that important or serves
our understanding.What I do believe is
important to know is that something about Jesus’ call compelled them.Whatever it was, it was compelling.And they responded.They followed.

It compelled them to
defy family expectations, cultural expectations, reason, common sense, sound
judgment.Something about Jesus’ call
compelled them to leave behind everything and everyone they knew, all that was
familiar, and follow this itinerant preacher.

I doubt that a call
like this was a commonplace event then.David
Lose, preacher and professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, wrote in his
weekly preaching column this past week that what makes it hard for all of us as
hearers of this story, is that we admire what the disciples did, but we’re not
so sure that we could do the same.But
in saying that, he went on to admit that for a lot of us pastors we kinda,
sorta feel like we do get it because we’ve already done it.I think he’s right.As pastors we do think we relate to the call
story of the disciples.

I dropped everything
and went to seminary.I left everything
and moved from New York to Iowa and Iowa to Oklahoma.

Which is true
technically, but I left one home and went to a new one.I left one paycheck and went to a new
one.Our pension plans and bank accounts
switched.This is a little different
than dropping everything, leaving everything isn’t it?As pastors we may follow new calls, but our
needs for security are the same as anyone else’s.

And although it could
be argued that the disciples’ lives were far simpler than ours, their need for
security and familiarity was probably no different than ours.They had families.Responsibilities.Obligations.They still followed.

Before we feel as
though we’ll never live up to the disciples’ example of radical following, we
need to remember something else about the disciples – especially in Mark’s
accounting of them.They didn’t get
it.They failed.They were right there with Jesus and they
couldn’t grasp what he was trying to tell them.They couldn’t fully accept that when Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God
that he was referring to a state of being, a new reality, not just a place
somewhere else.The disciples failed
Jesus.They turned away from him.They protected their own skins.They ran away afraid.They just didn’t get it.They may have answered the call, but they
couldn’t fully follow it.

The disciples were not
perfect in their following.Nor are we. Yet
this is where I think that grace intersects with our human experience.We too receive a first call, hear Jesus’s
first words.And then through grace we
hear them again.We receive a second
call, a third and so on.It’s never too
late to answer Jesus’ call to follow.It’s never too late to make a decision that can radically change the
course of our lives.

In a few minutes when
we install our new officers, we are lifting up the fact that these followers
said “yes.”In officer training this
past week, I asked each officer to think about why he or she said “yes” to the
call to serve.I ask that of all of
us.Why did we say, “yes?”And how does our “yes” manifest itself in our
lives?

In one way or another,
the fact that we are all here, gives witness to our yes.It gives witness to the fact, that even
though we are frail and flawed human beings, we still say “yes” to the call of
Jesus.“Yes” to the proclamation that
the time has come, the kingdom is in our midst, our reality has changed, our
hearts and minds are changed as well and we can answer Jesus’ call to follow as
immediately as those first disciples.This is grace.This is good
news.

4 comments:

I came here through a mutual friend's recommendation. Although my "it is time" moment was of different circumstance, I definitely heard the call of Christ when I was at my lowest low. My "drop everything" event meant dropping the way I was living my life and turning towards a spiritual path. Has it been easy? No. It has been the most difficult thing I have done. Has it been "perfect"? Absolutely not. But isn't really all about the journey, in the 1st place. As I have been taught, it's progress, not perfection.

Anyway, I have read many of your posts and relate to your journey. You have a new follower.

I love this! It speaks to me and so many. Thank you Amy for guiding us to listen for that "call" in our lives...to take that chance...and to not be afraid to fail...the future awaits us and our lives can be changed forever! We just need to trust and listen...Thank you my friend! I love your blog!!